faulty distribution
by So Guhn
Summary: Sacrifice all that is good and just, and become the devil. Turn 24 speculation fic. semi-spoilers. Lelouch x Nunnally.


a/n: ahaha how long has this been on my hard drive? confrontation speculation fic. Turn 24. I'm late. I know. You don't care.

_faulty distribution_** ; PG13 - drama/angst - Lelouch x Nunnally**

They meet again.

It's in that moment that Lelouch realises for the first time that he had also been wearing a mask at that time, when he told C.C. that for the sake of the world he could no longer give Nunnally special treatment. He could no longer protect her. He sees now, frankly, that as everything has been it has been a lie. (Shirley, he had wept for her the simplicity of an innocent that gave and gave to the hopelessness of his blackened heart, wept for her because she wanted to be something pure, something true for _him_. Amongst all the lies, even the lies he told her, but there is only one truth-) only one, he only needed one truth. It is what has driven, motivated him since that day that mother lowered for him to peek at the bundle in her hands, her too sharp hands that did not look like motherly hands but instead that of a hawk, (but Lelouch paid no mind to that for those very hands had cradled him in them too) peer into that bundle to look upon that pink skin and new breath, look at the short curling locks of caramel coloured hair, fresh and all anew a little sister.

Turning his world all anew, a little wind up.

A music box.

(A little locket, hear a melody he wants her to hear and only hear, from him to her, but it has gone awry as his love does. It never settles right, the pulp in juice does better, the sand in the ocean, the unseen carried on the wind. All does better to settle when purpose dies down. He doesn't know his purpose will never die.)

He hadn't believed it.

Lelouch threw himself into all that is just and good and once upon taking it into his hands twisted it into an unimaginable shape. The devil's hands. As he approaches her now, blood staining against the white of emperor's new clothes (a little short circuited smile, killed in its prime) the guards that had guarded this floor massacred, this piece of Schneizel's plan cut to bits as Lelouch, on his way to what must truly be the first real check in his life gave it up.

Because after all, he cannot give her up.

His purpose for living, protecting her, loving her, her happiness. That had all he had thought of and had ever wanted. To throw it away because fate tricked him, (tricked him twice, just as wicked as he) it wasn't- something he could do.

He has loved her too much for that; he cannot destroy his one truth.

Even for the world (and C.C. will see it fall away in the end, that mask that carries over his real face, almost translucent at first look and then you realize it is rather dirty and unclear, drifting fog) he cannot.

Not for the life of him.

He wants to laugh, walking closer to her in this false Shangri-la. Butterflies even fluttering about sweet blossoms and lush green leaves curling with steady stem in beauty only heavenly hands could shape. Fluttering over a fake blue sky (where reality is grey grey and cloudy and smoking and smothering with his rage, a switch, a turn of lips) and he steps to her. Knowing Suzaku will be angry, will be furious that Zero Requiem will remain unfulfilled because even if Schneizel wins, even if Lelouch loses, even if he must loosen his grip on the world, even if he vanishes from it, she must live.

"Your brother is selfish," his voice quakes, and the earth is splitting beneath her feet Nunnally thinks. FREYA's switch still in hand, his brow is knotted and looks on strained but not horrified, knowing she has only stained her hands because he told her he she has never, only he. Knowing that because of him and only for him, she would stain them red red and deeper red to prove to him that she is by his side.

They may stand at opposite sides of the clock, one hand pointing to three and the other at nine but some how their shadows over lap.

He kneels before her, hands so startling resting on her knees as his shadow had over her being. She lets him touch her unflinchingly, wary and welcoming all at once. He places a hand in hers. ("I will end your bad karma, brother.")

"Only to you," and it's choking, these old words, dying in his throat and being resurrected all over again, she feels his hand tremble and knows, had known all along what he had wanted. Because she, she knows him best. Though others had claimed this right, she makes no claim over what is already hers.

"Only to you I do not lie."

The truth is just that.

It knows no lie.

The switch falls onto her lap as she uses the other hand fold over the side of his cheek, finding it as it had not been before, a little more taunt, a little more worried, a little more foreign but it is still her brother's face. The curve of his brow, the tip of his nose, the sharp of cheekbones and over his lips where he has said nothing and in his silence frightened her in more ways than lies could. All the while holding his hand in hers.

Softly, "I know."

Again.

"I know."

Wet warmth seeps over her fingers, and then her cheeks as well.

--

It came to C.C., an electric trill of foreboding that makes her hands ache within the cockpit of this lancelot. Urgently, communicating to Jeremiah who is a ways ahead of her, yelling at him even through the connection to fulfill his duty because the time may not be now, but it is the only time and her desperation is so spotted and stretched hoarse that he cannot refuse. He reaches out the geass canceller as far as he can, going up and higher to reach the castle.

Speeding through the flying bullets, the light, the flashes of people going down and tearing through. It catches and Kallen remembers Lelouch asking her "Were you the pilot in Shinjuku?" and asking more, "Why do you fight?" And Anya remembers in full colour what has been. The patches of her memory collecting and sorting, what is real and what is not. And Suzaku remembers what it is like to want to die.

And C.C. hurries.

--

Lelouch shields her with his body, the way mother supposedly had.

The wheelchair noisily turns as his arms catch around her and they land on the ground, hot and wet, blood spilling over the front of her belly and chest. Bullets imbedding themselves through her brother's flesh as ungeassed guards make their rounds through open doors. Discard what is not needed any longer. The guards meet bullets themselves, but as C.C. said before she is not god. God is not slow. His hand either touches or does not. Hers is slight. Nunnally's breath catches as her sight returns, the ability to open and see surging through her like the regained memories, red carpet and father looking down and being told-

Nunnally grips at her brother's shoulders. Calling over and over for him, he is heavy, not in the way mother had been, but much worse. She did not know sin felt like this. He weakly reaches to pull one of her hands down, both lying upon their sides. His image fuzzy and blurred but indistinction decreasing as her eyes get used to the light, trying to regain skills she had thought she had had not before.

Her mouth contorted in a sharp shape he's never seen, though the other arm, hand is stained in crimson he cannot help but not resist- touching at her mouth. Regretfully. "I couldn't keep my promise."

C.C. stands by the door biting her lip, even before her he had worn a mask, even her! Her body does not touch the doorframe. She steps forward.

Nunnally shakes her head, tears falling, the brightest falling stars to ever- he's smiling, and the degree of melancholy that strives through it bridles her heart heavy, and low, "Onii-sama I-" (just wanted to carry something, just wanted to help, just wanted to _save you_, protect you, love you, keep you, save...) wanted to do what he thought she would do as he watched over her.

"Geass."

She starts and he looks on, "Me? Will you, use it on me?"

He's shaking his head, and the way he arranges their fingers startles her to look down, a pinky swear, the way he swore that by the time her eyes opened the world would be a kinder place. But hadn't her world been kind? With her older brother? She had just wanted a world where other people could experience the same love and kindness she had from those around her, from her brother...

"Promise me," she doesn't like the way his voice cracks, as if it is dry, as if he needs water (and it spills, a pool out and over, what could be reflected upon that vile living beautiful colour? Red.) "That you'll-"

Suzaku will be angry, Lelouch thinks once more, Suzaku will be enraged that Lelouch did not fulfill his promise. But he wouldn't be too angry, too unforgiving? Lelouch doesn't know anymore.

"-make a kind, peaceful world."

But not at the cost of your humanity.

His finger slips from hers though she tries to catch it. C.C. looking over them and Lelouch cannot see any longer, eyes slipping shut and death a breath away. A sob already wracking up Nunnally's throat, she didn't want, she hadn't wanted this.

The witch frowns, saying under her breath "Liar."

He wasn't smiling at all!

She crouches down, a hand on Nunnally's shoulder, the other hand reaching to cup at Lelouch's face before fingers quickly touching at his brow, the tips felt barely. "I cannot- will not let you die."

Light fills the room, a light like no other, it is geass.

It is her code.

--

The building is collapsing within itself as Lelouch's original plans occur. Schneizel looks up at him as Lelouch looks down, bloodstained clothes with ripped bullets holes torn about them. His hand on the handle bar. And Schneizel asks, "Is this your check?" just before bullets of the same size that had gone through Lelouch end his life.

--

Nunnally asks, "Will my brother be fine?"

And Jeremiah holding C.C.'s corpse had run swiftly ahead, as Nunnally is being held by Suzaku. Wheelchair abandoned and not exactly ideal in the cockpit of an already crowded knightmare, Suzaku does not run or walk, he moves, moves fast and precise. She thinks his footsteps are a little like her brother's now and it strikes her odd if not unnatural.

His expression usually fierce and undeterred; melts and briefly he gives her the slightest of smiles.

"Of course."

But she's not holding his hand so she doesn't know if it is a lie.

--

The first thing she does when they meet once more is take his hand and hold it. Only after twenty five minutes and thirty eight seconds have passed does Lelouch tell her once again that he loves her.

But she hadn't needed to hold his hand for that.


End file.
